Reading Tools

Liverpool at bottom of jobs league again

But praise heaped on city workforce by global company

Published on September 7th 2012.

Almost a third of households in Liverpool have no people in employment, according to new Government figures.

A regional breakdown of data from the Office of National Statistics showed that Liverpool had the highest percentage of “workless households” in 2011 at 31.6pc, slightly down on the previous year's figure of 31.9pc.

It was the fourth year in a row that Liverpool had the highest rate, contrasting dramatically with Oxfordshire which came in with the lowest at 8.0pc.

Bit one global company was keen to jump on the news by giving a different take.

ServiceSource, a service renewals management company with offices in The Plaza, Old Hall Street, said it pciked the city for its "centre of sales excellence", creating 100 new jobs for local people this year alone to help staff its aggressive growth plans.

Louise Rooney, its UK HR manager, said: "These figures do not reflect the level of talent and expertise that we, here have been lucky enough to discover in Liverpool. For us as a technology company, Liverpool is the ideal location as it is a vibrant multi-cultural city that combines state of the art business infrastructure as a result of recent investment and regeneration with a talented pool of multi-lingual speakers which are imperative for our business."

South Teesside had the second highest rate at 29.1pc. The highest figure in Wales was 28.7pc in the Central Valleys, including Merthyr Tydfil, while Glasgow topped the workless household league in Scotland, also at 28.7pc.

Areas with the highest rates were heavily industrialised in the last century, with industries such as coal mining and shipbuilding, which have long been in decline.

Sickness

The lowest percentage of workless households were mainly in the South of England, such as Oxfordshire (8pc) and Buckinghamshire (9.8pc).

Sickness was the main reason given by people living in workless households, although London had the highest percentage of people giving studying as a reason for not working, while retirement was often a reason in the South West.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "These figures make clear that high concentrations of workless households are not due to a so-called 'benefits culture' but because of mass unemployment caused by the collapse of major industries.

"It is a lack of jobs that puts people on benefits, not the other way round. Ministers must avoid the easy option of simply demonising people on benefits as this will not help a single person back into work.

"Instead we need an industrial strategy and proper investment to create jobs and give hope to these communities."

Like what you see? Enter your email to sign up for our newsletters which are chock-a-block with more great reviews, news, deals and savings.

When the manufacturing industries judged by the Tories to be 'old-fashioned' (i.e., unionised) were closed down, there was a much greater dependence in this area on public sector employment.

Twenty years ago Liverpool City Council alone employed 31,000 people. Thanks to cuts by the New Labour Tories as well as the current shower in government there are now less than a sixth of that number.

What Liverpool needs is not more blocks of empty offices and unsold flats (as Peel Holdings would have us believe) but factories, laboratories, affordable commercial premises, etc. so that skilled workers can earn proper wages here and not have to seek work elsewhere, leaving only the old, the sick and children living on benefit in Liverpool with only a small number of low-paid jobs. The only alternative to pushing a brush or selling junk food here is call centres!

Lots of people working are still on benefits because rents are so high and wages are so low.The Government's encouragement of employers to employ more part-timers and not even to guarantee a minimum number of hours per week can only increase the reliance on benefits. Working doesn't put food on the table any more.